Mayor Stephanie Miner enters to a standing ovation at her State of the City Address last week. Today, she testified in Albany about Gov. Andrew Cuomo's pension financing plan.Mike Greenlar / The Post-Standard.

“We are in the midst of a fiscal crisis,” Miner said at the New York State Legislature’s Joint Legislative Budget Hearing on local governments. “This is not a case where local officials made bad decisions and we are looking for help. We’re in the eye of a fiscal storm.”

Miner, a former labor lawyer who recently announced her bid for re-election, immediately questioned the plan. Today, she added to that debate, saying the long-term financing depends on quicker-than-normal employee turnover, gives few details about how payments will work in the later years and fails to account for future drastic downturns in the economy.

“How do we know that this plan is viable 25 years down the line?” Miner asked state lawmakers.

Cuomo, a Democrat who last year hand-picked Miner to co-chair the state’s Democratic Party, has said the plan would provide much-needed financial help that Miner and other Upstate leaders have been asking for. Syracuse would save $43.5 million on pension payments in the first five years if the city opted into the plan.

Miner acknowledged today that would help, and she left the door open on whether Syracuse might ultimately choose to sign up for the pension plan. Miner said her working relationship with Cuomo remains fine, according to YNN's Nick Reisman.

But she also pressed state lawmakers and Cuomo to do more to fix a problem she says New York state, not local communities, caused.

In 2000, Miner testified, the state legislature allowed some public workers to stop contributing to their pension funds after 10 years of service. Over the next decade, Syracuse’s pension bill grew by 729 percent, from $2.4 million to $19.9 million, increases due to the pension sweeteners and the 2008 housing crash. The most recent yearly pension bill is $32.5 million, Miner said.

Lawmakers from Syracuse pushed back on some of the mayor’s assertions.

“What else is there that you would suggest?” asked Assemblyman Bill Magnarelli, D-Syracuse.

Miner said the state needs to help cities build new, long-lasting revenues to make up for shrinking property tax collections. She mentioned Upstate Medical University is the city’s largest employer. As a state entity, it pays no property taxes.

But if those large entities use up city services like police, firefighters and snow plowing, “You should pay,” Miner said.

Other Upstate mayors were more accepting of Cuomo’s pension plans. Rochester Mayor Thomas Richards said he liked the pension smoothing plan, which could save $76.4 million for the city in the first five years, according to the governor’s projections.

But Richards, too, said that the state needs to help cities rethink their financial footing going forward. “I’m forced to prove how poor we are,” Richards said of his city in asking for more help from Albany.

Onondaga County Joanie Mahoney, a Republican who has endorsed and raised money for Cuomo, said Cuomo’s pension plan was a helpful tool. Mahoney compared it to a family refinancing a 30-year mortgage to make ends meet.

“It’s something people do all the time,” Mahoney said. “It can be the difference between paying the bills and facing bankruptcy.”

Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse, said not every family would want a brand new mortgage, especially if it offered cheaper payments tied to a longer term. But he also said it’s not simply the state’s fault that pension costs have gotten so far out of control.

“My point is, everybody has a part of the fault in this,” said DeFrancisco, who co-chairs the budget hearings. “The issue is how do we resolve it.”